I'm still a little disturbed about those overseas readers. I now have three separate readers in Belgium. And both my current and my last boss are Belgians. Philippe, Ian, if either of you are reading this, how about you just tell me now and let me resign quietly on Monday?
Chapter Twenty-Three: San Francisco
Sam and Frank had been haunting the docks of San Francisco for nearly a week. They'd heard the evening before, when the crew of a British clipper disembarked, that the ship had passed the Annie Laurie two days out and thought it no more than a day behind them. But when the men walked down to the wharf at noon the next day they found the Annie Laurie already tied up. There was a hustle at the end of her gangplank as a group of men were slowly leading away six well-groomed but poorly-conditioned horses. Frank's eyes followed the horses, but Sam was watching the deck. He saw a very tall, bearded man in navy blue pants and jacket come to stand next to an only slightly less tall officer at the head of the gangway. "Frank, that's him!" he said grabbing his companion's arm.
Frank followed Sam's glance and was at first disbelieving, put off by the unaccustomed beard and clothing, but then the man held out a hand to the officer and the familiar gesture shook everything into place. "By God, it is!" he exclaimed and made his way swiftly to the bottom of the plank and called out, "Matt!"
Dillon, not expecting a welcoming committee, turned to look at the dock and his eyes grew round in recognition of the two men standing there. Dropping the seabag that was draped over his shoulder, he started down the gangway. Frank stood at the bottom grinning with his arms wide open, and Matt walked straight into them. The two men embraced. Matt felt his friend's lips against the scar on his cheek and hugged him even harder. Standing back half a step, still holding on to Frank's arm, he cupped a hand at the nape of Frank's neck and shook him lightly. "Did you marry her, Frank?" It wasn't what he'd planned to say, but there was nothing else he needed to know more.
"No, Matt, I didn't. I wanted to, but she turned me down," Frank replied.
"Then who did?" Matt asked astounded.
"I did, Matt," Sam said. Matt turned and looked at the creased and weathered face of the big man beside him. Sam was smiling happily, but there was worry in his eyes.
Matt extended a hand to him and when Sam took it, he added his other hand and gripped it firmly. "I should have known," he said. "I should have figured that out, but I didn't. The baby?"
"A little girl, Matt. She was born on the first of December, and we named her Maria." Sam said, and then went on, "She and Kitty are waiting for you in Reno."
"Reno?"
"Our divorce will be final in three more days."
Matt's eyes searched Sam's face. "You're divorcing Kitty? Why?"
"I'm letting her divorce me," Sam replied. "We agreed to all that before we married. There's a lot to tell, Matt, and we need to hear what happened to you. We know almost nothing except what was in your two letters. Well, three really, but the third one was just a duplicate and it came after Kitty left for Reno."
"Yeah, I sent two copies," Matt grinned. "Didn't want to take any chances in case one of 'em didn't make it."
"How about we get away from here before we get into all that, ol' son, or we'll be here on this dock all day," Frank said. "You ready to go?"
Matt nodded. "We got paid off last night. I just stayed to unload the horses." He turned back to the gangway to see Luiz standing next to Captain MacIntyre at the bottom of the plank, their seabag at his feet. He placed a hand on each man's arm and drew them forward. "Captain, I'd like to introduce Marshal Frank Reardon and Mr. Sam Noonan of Dodge City, Kansas. Gentlemen, Captain Thomas MacIntyre."
"Marshal Reardon, Mr. Noonan," the captain said, his eyes resting not on the men before him but on Dillon himself. "So he really is Matt Dillon and a US Marshal?"
Frank Reardon nodded, and taking a badge from his pocket, he pinned it onto Matt's blue coat. "A US Marshal in good standing and with a bucket full of back pay waiting for him, Captain."
"I suppose stranger things have happened, but I'm not sure I've heard of them. Dillon, you'll be back in touch before we leave?"
"Yes, sir, I will," Matt replied, and then, putting an arm around Luiz's shoulders he drew the boy forward. "Frank, Sam, I want you to meet Luiz Jose Maria Alamieda da Silviero."
"Luiz Dillon," the boy said firmly, offering his hand first to the older man and then to the younger.
"Also known," Matt agreed smiling broadly, "As Luiz Dillon."
"Now," Matt said, "I want a steak, and a bath, and a glass of whiskey, in that order. I need to buy some clothes for myself and Luiz, and I need to check in at the Marshal's Office here, but I don't have to do that until tomorrow. Lead on boys, it's time to go." Frank shouldered the duffel and led them up the street away from the harbor.
OoOoO
The steak was procured at a small restaurant on their way back to the hotel. Luiz looked on in a combination of admiration and horror as Matt worked his way through a huge t-bone, mashed potatoes, rolls, vegetables, and finished with a wedge of apple pie that would have fed four men had their ship run to such luxuries. "You eat like this every day, padrinho?" Luiz asked.
"When I can," Matt answered, "And I've been thinking about this very steak since long before we got to Rio."
"I have no longer surprise that you are such a big man, padrinho," Luiz told him.
The other men laughed and Matt joined them, but Luiz was not put off. It seemed to him a good kind of laughter. Matt tried to pay for the meal, but Sam wouldn't let him. "Money's one of the things we have to talk about, Matt," Frank said, and Sam agreed with a sober nod.
"All right, but first, let's get back to the hotel for that bath," Matt said, "I haven't bathed in anything but seawater in four months and I haven't been in an actual tub in more than a year."
Luiz looked at him in disgust. "Always the washing. Always the soap."
"We'll see how you like it when the water's hot, and not salt, and there's a whole tub full of it, Luiz." Matt said.
"I still will not like it."
"Maybe so, but you'll do it, boy," Matt told him firmly. "And wash your hair as well."
"Yes, sir," Luiz agreed despondently.
Sam and Frank had taken two rooms at a hotel about half a mile from the harbor on Chestnut Street. There was a bathroom with a large tub on each floor. Matt showed Luiz how to use the one on their floor, and made sure he had a key to the rooms before going down a level to immerse himself in a tub of hot water with Frank to keep him company. It was mid-day and the hotel was nearly deserted, so Matt settled in to soak.
"That word the boy calls you – pa-DREEN-yo – you know what that means, Matt?" Frank asked him.
"I think it means "little father" or something like that so maybe papa or daddy," Matt said, resting his head back against the edge of the tub.
"Not quite. It's the same thing in Spanish. It means godfather."
Matt considered that. "Well, Luiz does remember his own father, so I suppose it's a compromise. I don't mind."
"You ever been a godfather, Matt?"
"Nope, but I know you have, Frank."
"Down in Arizona they take that seriously. A godfather is supposed to take over everything when a child's father dies. Usually the Mexicans keep it in the family with a brother or an uncle or a cousin."
"Like I thought you'd marry Kitty when you thought I was dead?" Matt asked him solemnly.
"Just like that," Frank said. He tipped his chair back against the wall and set his boots on the edge of the tub. "You want to talk about that first, Matt, or you want to hear things in order?"
"In order, I suppose. You talk while I wash."
It took longer than that, of course. By the time Matt was clean and dry and dressed, Frank had gotten up through Festus and Newly's trip back to Dodge with Estelle. "I don't even remember what she looked like, Frank," Matt commented. "Just that there was a woman and a little girl in the wagon when I stepped in. I remember Tonneman taking my gun and pointing it at me and then burning pain and darkness. Must have been a long time before I came to, and then I was in that wagon for days, no, for weeks. Thirsty all the time and the wound blazing on my face."
Frank draped an arm around his friend's shoulders, seeming to need to keep touching him to know he was really there. "Let's go back up and get Sam in on this, Matt. He was around while it was happenin'. I just heard it from Doc and the others."
They found Sam and Luiz sitting in two of the three armchairs in front of the fireplace in the main bedroom. The smaller connecting room had only two narrow beds and a washstand. Luiz stood as the men entered, and Matt settled into the chair he vacated. "You been telling him about what happened, Sam?"
"No. He's been telling me about what happened to you," Sam said gravely.
"Well, if you don't mind, I'll get to that later. I want to hear what happened in Dodge. Frank just got to where the boys brought in that little girl to Doc."
"Estelle," Sam said with a smile spreading across his face. "Kitty and I've been raising her, Matt. She's a dear girl, and she's got more than a little to do with this story."
Taking it in turns Frank and Sam filled Matt in on what had happened. They detailed Ace's quest for the Tonneman gang and his adventures in Galveston, and they introduced Matt to the idea of Julie Haggen. The last episode, with the gang's attempt to ambush Frank, and Sam being shot by Shiloh, left his face sober. Frank described the events in Washington and Dodge up through the arrival of Matt's second letter, and explained Judge Brooker's advice. Matt noticed that Sam didn't speak more than the barest description of his marriage to Kitty, and that although he described 'the suitors' and Frank's arrival that there were clearly pieces of that story that were also left out. He reckoned he'd be talking privately with each of the men before long.
"Doc and Kitty left for Reno with Maria and Estelle on the fifteenth of September." Sam said, "She got in touch with Judge Brooker's friend – a lawyer named Ralph Waggoner – and he started putting all the papers together while they waited for her to become a resident. The lawyer decided Kitty needed a more specific complaint against me, and Mollie Parks came through with that, so Waggoner filed the divorce complaint on the second of this month, Judge Julien heard the case in his chamber on Monday the fifth, and the divorce will be final when the newspapers publish it on Friday."
"Sam, I don't know what to say." Matt's voice was unsteady.
"There's only one thing I need to hear from you, Matt," Sam said looking him in eye, "And that's that you're going to marry Kitty on Saturday. That's the only thing that matters."
"Marrying Kitty is the thing I want most in this world, Sam. Assuming she'll have me, nothing is going to stop that from happening," Matt told him. "I've been thinkin' for a year now that I'd lost any opportunity to marry her, and tryin' to make up my mind to take whatever consolation I could from being her friend. Sam, I just don't have words…"
"You've said the only words that matter." Sam said.
"What are you going to do now, Sam?" he asked. "I wouldn't think you'd want to go back to Dodge."
Sam and Frank shared a glance. "Kitty and I sold the Long Branch, Matt," Sam told him. "That's why I stayed in Dodge while she went to Reno. It was our agreement from the beginning that we'd sell out and split the money." He met Matt's eyes squarely, "Neither of us feels we can live in Dodge anymore."
Matt nodded slowly. "That makes sense, Sam. I'll have to see where Kitty wants to go. What about you?"
"I'm moving to Denver. My brother owns a bar down near the capitol building, and he's been trying to get me to go partners with him for several years now – but I didn't want to leave the Long Branch. I'll invest my share of the saloon money in fixing up the place, maybe add a restaurant," Sam said. "Speaking of which, you ready for dinner?"
"I am!" Matt agreed. "You've no idea the hours I spent on those ships thinking about real American food."
They ate at a place near the hotel, continuing their conversation there and then later back by their fireplace at the hotel. At some point, Sam yawned and took himself off to bed in the other room, leaving Frank to be private with Matt and Luiz. When Matt noticed the boy's head nodding half an hour later, he walked Luiz into the far room where he could have a bed to himself.
"He's a little old, isn't he, for you to be tucking him in?" Frank commented when Matt returned, shutting the door behind him. He refilled Matt's glass from the whiskey bottle and handed it to him as he sat down stretching out his long legs.
"You have no idea how strange all this to him, Frank," Matt replied taking a sip from his glass. "Sleeping in a bed. Bathing in a tub. Even using a chamberpot. And the food! Lord, Frank, you wouldn't believe what the food was like on those ships, even the good ones, and there was never enough. It's no wonder the boy didn't grow!"
"How old is he? Twelve, thirteen maybe?"
"Luiz turned fifteen last week. And he started growing just a few months ago. When I first met him he was almost fourteen and looked ten." Matt gazed steadily at Frank in silence for a minute or two before he added, "He'd been raped pretty regularly by the men on his ship, Frank. For years. That's left him… untrusting. I'm amazed sometimes it didn't spoil him permanently."
Frank took that in. It wasn't something they'd dealt with often as lawmen, but now and then they'd see it. "He seems to trust you, partner," he said at last.
"I hope so. I owe him my life," Matt said, drinking a little more and turning the glass in his hand. Eventually he asked, "You ever think about hell, Frank?"
"From time to time, Matt, yes, I do."
"When I first woke up on that ship, I wondered if I'd died, and it was hell," Matt said. Frank waited. After a while he went on. "I've never thought of myself as a man who needed a lot of things. A gun, a horse, a badge. But when I woke up on the Lupinho I had nothing. Nothing. Not even a pair of drawers. I was naked, I was hungry, I was a captive, and everyone I loved was gone. I couldn't even understand the language. Then Luiz walked into the room and took my hand. The two things that kept me going were a determination to get back to Kitty, and Luiz by my side. Couldn't have done it otherwise."
Matt was studying his glass, but Frank's voice came to him, deep and full of comfort. "For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was in prison and you came to me. Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me."
"And if that means I tuck him into bed until he's twenty, I'll do it every night," Matt said softly.
Frank rose and laid a hand on his friend's shoulder, and Matt reached up to grip it. Later, in the dark, stretched out next to each other on the bed, Frank asked, "You still awake, Matt?"
"Yeah."
"I need to tell you something."
"Kitty?"
"Yes."
"I figured, Frank. You want to talk about it?"
"I didn't plan on it, Matt. We were both hurtin' bad, and I was just going to hold on to her – hold on to the only part of you I had left - and talk, and then I… I felt where the baby was growin'. I hadn't known. You hadn't said. God, Matt, it was just more than I could take in. Maria and our baby dead. And then you dead. And Kitty alive and carryin' your child."
"You wanted to marry her?" Matt asked.
"I did. And she told me she was going to marry Sam. She was determined, and she had her reasons. So for us it was just that one night."
Matt noticed how he said that. 'Just one night', not 'just one time'. "Sam know?"
"Yes. We talked the next day. Settled things between us." Then after a bit, Frank asked, "We still friends, Matt?"
"We'll always be friends, Frank." Matt said. After a while he sighed, "I've been picturin' you married to Kitty for a long time now, and all I could manage to hope was that you'd both still care enough for me that you'd let me have a part in the baby's life. I never really thought of Sam. I never imagined that anyone who married Kitty could bring himself to let her go."
"It's how much he loves her, Matt, but you have to know it's not easy for him. He says it's because they had an agreement, and they did, but it's really because he wants her to be happy more than he wants that for himself. He knows she ain't gonna be happy without you no matter how much she cares for him."
"No one ever gave me a bigger gift, Frank."
"Don't suppose anyone ever will."
Both men turned over and Matt felt the familiar warmth of Frank's back against his own. They slept.
OoOoO
In the morning, after breakfast – which involved yet another steak, Frank took Luiz to buy clothes. Matt handed over a roll of bills and made sure to tuck some directly in the boy's pocket as spending money. He'd been astounded to find that his ten pounds a month equaled fifty dollars in US currency and that the boy's five a month came to a man's salary of twenty-five dollars. Sam and Matt found a bench in a small green park and settled themselves for what both expected to be a difficult conversation. It was a rare sunny day, but the breeze off the bay was chill.
"Sam…" Matt began, but his friend stopped him.
"Why don't you let me start this, Matt? I've got some things I've got to get out, and some of them you're not going to like, so let me get it done."
"All right," Matt agreed.
"There's no easy way to put this, Matt, so I'm just going to say it out, and then we can deal with it. Kitty's pregnant."
Matt didn't respond. "Nothing to say, Matt?" Sam asked after the silence had grown long.
"I was waitin' for you to tell me the part I wasn't going to like."
Sam shook his head, "Don't hold out on me here, Matt. We need to settle this."
"Yes, we do. You and Kitty already talk about it?"
"Some. We were waiting for you. Kitty said it wouldn't matter to you, but I disagreed. No man wants his wife to have another man's child."
"You did, Sam."
"That's different. I'd love any child Kitty had," Sam retorted.
"And you think I wouldn't?"
"We thought you were dead, Matt."
"And you're most definitely not. How do you want to handle this, Sam? That's the part we need to talk about."
"I guess I figured maybe I'd be a sort of uncle to all the children, Matt. I know Maria's your child, but I love her like my own, and nothing's going to change that. And Estelle, maybe Estelle can come and stay with Mike and me in Denver sometimes. She's used to bein' raised by the whole town. She's going to miss that," Sam conjectured.
"And the new baby?"
"The new one will be a Dillon, just like Maria's a Noonan, and if you'll let me, I'd like to see the child from time to time," Sam said.
"Sam, you need to remember that for more than a year I've been standing right where you are today – thinking, knowing, that Kitty had married someone else and just trying to believe that whoever that was would trust me enough to let me be around Kitty, let me be a part of my child's life." Matt let that sink in before he went on. "I know this isn't the way families usually work, Sam. I know that usually a woman has nothing to do with a man who has hurt her enough to divorce him. Guess, we're going to have to get used to doing things a little differently."
"I wouldn't want the children to know, Matt," Sam said. "That's one of the reasons why Kitty and I agreed to leave Dodge. Too many people suspect, or think they know, that Maria isn't my daughter. They made it hard on Estelle, and they would make it just as hard on Maria when she gets older and goes to school."
"No need for that, Sam." Matt agreed. "Plenty of time when they're grown to explain things if that seems right, but as for loving, for being part of the family – that will always be your right, Sam, and you never need to worry that I won't welcome you."
The two men sat for a long time, lost in their own thoughts. "Frank talk to you about money, Matt?" Sam said at last.
"No, he told me he was goin' to, but then we got off on other things."
Sam was pretty sure what those other things were, but he went on, "First off, we got a little over six thousand for the Long Branch. We could have gotten more if we hadn't been in a hurry, but we were. Kitty and I split that. She had some savings, and I did too, so we're both flush right now. We took Estelle's reward money from killing Shiloh and put it in the bank with what Doc got for selling her parents' farm. She's pretty well set up. She'll have money to go to college if she wants, or to go into business, or help her husband if she marries. As for Maria…"
But Matt interrupted there, "I'll see to Maria, Sam."
Sam shook his head, "No, Matt. That's not the way this family's going to work. The judge set me twenty-five dollars a month for Maria's support, and if you won't take that then I'll put it in the bank for her. By the time she's grown, she'll have enough to match Estelle. And you can do the same for my child if you've a mind to. That way they all come out even."
Matt chewed on that for a while. He didn't care for it, but it was the first slice of making Sam a part of the children's life. He tried to see it from both sides and supposed he would get used to it. Sam rightly took his silence for consent and went on, "Frank got word from the Secretary of War a few weeks ago. He said he'd gotten a letter from you and wanted us to notify him if we heard from you. Frank wrote back and said we'd let him know when we saw you – didn't want anyone crowding around until we got things talked through and you and Kitty got married."
"I do need to go to the Marshal's Office here this afternoon, Sam. I told Endicott I'd report in."
"You've got back pay coming, Matt." Sam told him.
Matt shook his head, "I heard Frank say something about that, but it didn't seem right. Luiz and I have our pay from the ships. We haven't spent much."
"The Secretary apparently took it all the way up to the president, Matt. He said that men who were prisoners of war got their full pay for their time in captivity, and that you should get the same since you were taken and held in the line of duty."
"Well, fifteen dollars a month does add up to something…" Matt started, but Sam cut in.
"Not just your base pay, Matt. Endicott insisted on your full territorial marshal's pay with the hazard bonus. When you go in this afternoon, they're planning on giving you the full hundred a month for every month you were gone."
"That doesn't seem right, Sam." Matt said.
"Well don't you go and tell them that, Matt Dillon!" Sam expostulated. "Secretary Endicott and Frank, and a bunch of the other marshals, fought for this – wrote letters to the president of the United States. Your case means a lot to them 'cause they know it's not just death they're facing, but the same kind of thing that happened to you. This sets a precedent is what Judge Brooker said, and he and the other Kansas judges, and Governor Martin wrote letters as well. So you just get it through your mind that you're going to accept that back pay without an argument."
When Matt made no further comment, Sam went on, "The real question, Matt, is what are you going to do next? You going to resign that badge at last?"
"Yes, Sam, I am. I decided that on the way in from Hawaii," Matt said and then continued slowly, "It's clear that Frank was able to take over and hold the town, and that's his job now. If he wants to give it up, then someone else will take it on. You know what I thought about a lot, Sam?"
"What's that, Matt?"
"I thought that it's been almost seventeen months since I've killed anyone."
One side of Sam's wide mouth pulled down in a wry grimace. "That's quite an accomplishment, Matt. It hurts my soul, but it is an accomplishment. You think you can keep that up?"
Matt shook his head. "Don't see any way to do that. There'll be men coming after me for another twenty years, and I'll have a family to defend, but if I take off the badge, then every year should get a little better instead of a little worse."